The Summer Wedding Murder, page 18
part #8 of Sanford Third Age Club Mystery Series
Perry glanced around the four suspects. “Do any of you have anything to say?”
When they did not respond, she nodded to Lesney. “Read them their rights and charge them, Constable.”
Flanked by uniformed officers, Storm stood and delivered a menacing glare of pure hatred on Joe. “One day, they’ll let me out. And when they do, I’ll come looking for you.”
Joe smiled. “Lazy Luncheonette, Doncaster Road, Sanford. You can’t miss it.” He jerked a thumb at Lee. “It’s where my giant nephew works.”
***
Lee lifted the last suitcase into the car, and as his nephew backed off to return to his own car, Joe slammed the tailgate to lock the luggage in.
Nelson and Harriet Atkinson stood nearby.
“I do hope these unfortunate events haven’t put you off the Lake District and The Lakeside Manor Hotel, Mr Murray,” Nelson simpered. “We’d love to have you as our guests again.”
“With a new pair of shorts, one hopes,” said Harriet, sternly.
“There you go, you see,” Joe replied. “I spend so much money on classy hotels like yours I can’t afford new shorts.” He shook hands with them both. “It’s been an interesting weekend. Thanks for everything.”
While the hotel managers returned to their work, Joe prepared to climb into the car, and as he did so, Perry’s silver-grey Vauxhall drove into the car park and stopped nearby.
“Just wanted to say thanks for your help, Joe,” she said as she climbed out.
“No problem. Have you searched their flat?”
The inspector nodded and said, “You were right. We found traces of cocaine in the place and Scientific Support will tell us whether it comes from the same batch as we found in Pitman’s room. They’re still ripping the place apart looking for the alleged stash, and if it’s there, we’ll find it. If not, the Met will look at the Garbutt brothers’ place.” She sighed. “Like you, I think young Cartwright started out with lofty ambitions, but somewhere along the line, he realised there was a good profit to be made, if he could break into it, and taking Pitman’s merchandise would provide the foothold he needed. Even if he tries to retract his confession to murder, we should still get him on attempting to pervert the course of justice, and possession with intent to supply.”
“What about Darlene?”
Perry frowned. “Bit more difficult. She insists she’s innocent of anything other than helping him in a plot to coerce Pitman into a confession.”
“And her brothers?” Joe asked.
“Both Jezz and Ricky are saying nothing.”
Joe opened his car door and prepared to get in. “You’ll keep me posted?”
“Absolutely. I have your number.” They shook hands. “You know, Joe, you would have made a brilliant police officer. How come you never joined?”
He laughed and got behind the wheel. “My dad needed someone to run the caff after my brother went to Australia.”
“He’s lying,” Sheila called out from the passenger seat. “When he applied, there was a height restriction and he wasn’t tall enough.”
“In other words,” Brenda echoed, “he’s too short a shortarse. I told you. He can’t even reach the top pie racks in the Lazy Luncheonette kitchen.”
Joe grinned at the inspector, closed his door and let down the window. Turning the key in the ignition, he smiled out at Perry. “I’ll see you around sometime.” He fired the engine, slotted the car into gear, and drove away. “Another weekend brought to a satisfactory conclusion.”
“Not quite, Joe,” Brenda said from the back seat. “You promised to stop smoking and see the doctor.”
As they wound their way along the lane, Joe shook his head and lit a cigarette and controlled the desperate urge to cough. “I said I’d see the doctor and I promised to try and stop smoking.”
Sheila smiled. “And we’re there to make sure you do try, Joe.”
Chapter Sixteen
On Monday morning, the hot weather had given way to the promised thundery showers, but to Joe’s delight, the morning had been as busy as any other day, with most of the draymen glad to see him back and their favourite breakfast eatery open for business.
As he had promised, Joe made an appointment with his GP, and after a debate with the receptionist, during which he insisted the matter was urgent, he had cut along at eleven in the morning. With the time coming up to noon, and the lunchtime rush under way, he returned, but it was two in the afternoon before they finally sat at table five for a well-earned rest and he could bring them fully up to date.
“That doctor is an idiot,” Joe declared. “He swears blind he’s been telling me to stop smoking for years, when I know for a fact I haven’t seen him for five years.”
“So what did he say, Joe?” Sheila asked.
“He tested my breathing with this Spirograph ”
“Spirometer,” Brenda corrected.
“Probably. I had to puff into it half a dozen times.”
“And what was the outcome?”
Joe’s face fell. “My lungs are shot. COPD. Cash on prearranged delivery.”
“Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.” Sheila sounded triumphant. “Just as Inspector Perry suggested.”
“It’s incurable,” Brenda said.
“It’s a measure of lung efficiency,” Joe told them, “not a bloody death sentence.”
“It’s still incurable,” Brenda insisted, “and if you don’t pack the weed in, Joe, it will kill you before your time.”
“So he says. But what the hell does he know?”
“He’s a doctor.”
“He’s a bone idle git,” Joe retorted. “And he smokes a bloody pipe. Cheeky sod.”
“Pipes are thought not to be as bad,” Sheila ventured. “Has he done anything other than give you advice?”
Joe dug into his pocket and came out with an inhaler. “Salbutamol sulphate. One puff as and when needed. It’ll help when I get breathless.”
Brenda laughed wickedly. “You’ll need a good few puffs before you climb into bed with me again, then.”
With a grimace of disapproval at her friend, Sheila changed the subject. “And talking of Inspector Perry, have you heard anything yet?”
Joe yawned and nodded. “She rang at half past eleven, just as I came out of the doc’s. Did I not tell you?”
“No. You didn’t.”
“When she got back to the station yesterday, she went over the preliminary pathology report on Pitman’s body. There were no fingerprints, so whoever moved him to hang him up was wearing gloves. But there were marks on the body, made by their hands, and they were way too large for Storm’s mitts. She called the pathologist out, got some measurements and they fitted Jezz’s hands perfectly. As of last night, they still hadn’t admitted it, but it was Jezz who strung him up, probably with Ricky’s help.”
Brenda frowned. “So what were Storm and Darlene doing all this time?”
“Perry thinks Storm was with them, but it’ll be tough to prove. The CCTV from the boat station is a bit grainy, but the man seen wearing Rott’s overalls is too small for them. They hang on him like a loose sack of spuds. Perry believes it was Storm. In the meantime, the search teams went into their place on Wastwater Street, and they found a large stash of cocaine in the water tank. Finally, just as I guessed, she contacted the Met and they went to the warehouse in East London, looking for Hancock’s remains and found nothing. There’s another inquiry into that, but she reckons the same as I did. He’s dead and at the bottom of the Thames. All in all, it’s gonna be difficult to prove, but they’ll get something on all of them.”
“But Storm killed his mother,” Brenda protested.
“That was another lie,” Joe said with a shake of the head. “He was working the day his mother died. He actually came home and found her dead. That’s when he disappeared. She died of an overdose, true, but it wasn’t Zolpidem. She couldn’t take them because she was on antidepressants. She took about fifty paracetemol, and there was nothing to suggest anyone else was involved. The Zolpidem were actually prescribed for Storm, not her. He had the whole thing worked out perfectly. If Perry had accepted his story yesterday, he would get off on the mangled evidence, and then serve, maybe, two years for attempting to pervert the course of justice. He could even end up with a suspended sentence, but at the worst, he’d be out in a year, and then he would join Darlene and her brothers leading the high life, probably somewhere on the continent.”
“What I don’t understand is why go to all this trouble in the first place,” Sheila said. “It wasn’t as though anyone suspected him until you rumbled it, Joe.”
“I told you yesterday, it was a fallback plan. It was there just in case anyone put it together.” Joe grunted. “I guess he didn’t expect someone like me to rumble it so early.”
Brenda sighed. “Pitman was an evil man. So was Sergeant Hancock. But Storm was just as bad, wasn’t he?”
“Every bit as bad if you want my opinion,” Joe replied. He finished off his tea. “Better make a start on cleaning down, eh? Knock off early for a change.”
“Hear, hear,” Sheila agreed. “I have to say, Joe, when it comes to crime, you’re a genius.”
“Yes, well, the impossible, I can do.”
“He’s a genius who doesn’t smoke anymore,” Brenda applauded.
“But miracles might take a bit longer.”
THE END
The STAC Mystery series:
The Filey Connection
The I-Spy Murders
A Halloween Homicide
A Murder for Christmas
Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend
My Deadly Valentine
The Chocolate Egg Murders
The Summer Wedding Murder
Costa del Murder
Christmas Crackers
Death in Distribution
A Killing in the Family
A Theatrical Murder
Trial by Fire
Peril in Palmanova
The Squire’s Lodge Murders
Murder at the Treasure Hunt
A Cornish Killing
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David W Robinson, The Summer Wedding Murder
